When we talk about the network we immediately think of the internet and when we talk about speed, we think of downloading data and files from websites or in p2p. Instead, even to do a little teaching, this time let's see how to measure the speed of a home or office LAN network related to the transmission of data between computers connected to each other, which are in the same environment. Basically you go to measure the data transmission speed of a router or switch to check the quality with which it manages and transfers data from one PC to another.
To calculate how fast the internet connection is, download and stream from your computer can use other criteria listed in another article.
With the small LAN Speed Test program you can measure the speed of your home or office network.
LAN Speed Test is a tiny 60K program that you can download for free and install on Windows 10 or Windows 7 and 8. The free version is the lite version, with some limitations.
As you start it, a graphical interface appears showing the computer name and IP address. To take the speed test, the computer must be able to view the other PCs in the home or business network. This can be verified by opening My Computer, navigating to the network section (in Windows 10 and Windows 7, this will be displayed in the left sidebar) and checking if there are other computers available, they will be illustrated here.
Once it has been confirmed, you can start the speed test by clicking on the Start Test button. When the window asking to choose the folder appears, you have to go to a shared folder on the network. After selecting the folder, press OK. When asked how large the file you want to use to test the network speed should be, you can leave the default value of 100 MB.
The speed check does nothing but create a temporary file and then, from the other computers, writes and reads that file that is in the public folder.
The testing process can take some time and in the end, results are obtained. Among the values marked, the most important is the last one, Mbps or megabits per second . A megabit is approximately equal to 0.125 MB, which means that you need to have a transfer rate of 8 megabits per second to transfer 1 megabyte. So, vice versa, if you get a value of 16 Mbps per second of speed, it means that the data is transferred from one PC to another at 2 MB; just divide by 8 .
This information is also fundamental to understand how well video streaming works between computers, for example the DVD goes at 10.08 Mbit / s while the other video file formats have different speeds.
Although you can have a LAN connection speed measurement with this program, no accuracy can be assured. The fact is that sometimes a file is transferred faster than another and then, if we talk about wireless connections, there may be interference from other signals or obstacles (read how to find and connect to the best wifi network).
Recalling the guide to create a corporate network at home or in an office with sharing between computers, I conclude by saying that this Lan Speed Test provides an indicative measurement of the quality of the network installed at home or in the office.
READ ALSO: What slows down Wifi network speed and internet connection
